Tripura Election Results: celebrations at BJP office as CM Manik Saha wins seat

Manik Saha, tipped to be Tripura’s chief minister for a second term, on Thursday defeated Congress’s veteran leader Ashish Kumar Saha, by a margin of 1,257 votes from Town Bardowali despite detractors within his own party predicting a “tough time” for him in the prestigious constituency. From Saha joining the saffron party in 2016 to being made chief minister last year in a brand renewal exercise, it has been a short but upward journey for the 69-year-old dental surgeon-turned politician.

After BJP’s ideological mentor RSS found out that the previous chief minister Biplab Deb had cost the party a loss in popularity by his brash actions and poor law and order record, alienating many of the saffron party’s supporters, the party big-wigs decided on Saha, a quite and unassuming politician over several other potential rivals including union minister Pratima Bhowmik.

The man who BJP has built up as `Mr Clean’ took over as chief of Tripura’s BJP unit in 2020 and then did a short stint as a member of the Rajya Sabha from April 3 to July 4 last year.

The ride for the greenhorn politician who had earlier been a Congress loyalist has been a dream one in the last six years or so.

Saha, who is an oral and maxillofacial surgery specialist, had won the Town Bardowali seat, located outside the state capital city Agartala, in a by-poll in 2022. Before joining politics, Saha used to teach at Tripura Medical College located in Hapania.

He had only 10 months as the chief minister of the northeastern state after replacing Deb but managed to lift the state government’s image before the February 16 assembly polls.

The “gentleman politician” did his schooling in Tripura in the early 1970's and then went on to do his higher education in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

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